Towards a New Age of

Information and
Knowledge for All

Statement of the Club of Rome

to the World Summit on the Information Society
Geneva 2003
© 8/2003 The Club of Rome
Respect Copyright • Encourage Creativity

Herausgeber: The Club of Rome • Secretary General • Rissener Landstr. 193 - 197
D - 22559 Hamburg • Germany

Design: Reinhard Semkowsky • MFM Marketing GmbH

 Content Page

Foreword 3

Executive Summary 4
Recommended Actions 6

1 A New World Frame for Sustainable Development 7

2 ICT as an Innovator for Sustainable Development 9

2.1 Creating overall Awareness through ICT 9

2.2 Network and Energy Infrastructure 10

2.3 Education for Knowledge Sharing and Capacity 11

Building

2.4 Monitoring Environmental Targets 13

2.5 Cultural Diversity and Creativity. The Impact of the 14

Media

2.6 Empowering Productivity and Entrepreneurship 15

3 Governance and Recommendations 16

3.1 Protecting the “Commons”. Enhancing the Universal 16

Declaration of Human Rights

3.2 Stability and Security 17

3.3 Simultaneity in the Implementation of Educational 17

Processes

3.4 Protecting Privacy 18

3.5 Participation of the Civil Society in the 18

Implementation Plans
FOREWORD
The emergence of a networked knowledge society in the next
twenty to thirty years is a major paradigm shift from the industrial
model of the nineteenth and twentieth century. This transition is of
crucial importance in opening up new opportunities for education,
social inclusion, and more efficient use of resources. Information and
communication technologies are the effective tools of this transition.

They are a “tool for development”, not a “reward for development”.

They have the potential to empower billions of people; to enable
sustainable development, and enhance human dignity. They can
offer new access to education for and by the people even in the
most remote regions; bring improved health care; help eradicate
poverty, empower women and build sustainable communities. They
can enable self-expression, new knowledge creation and cultural
diversity, and continued and sustainable economic growth. They
must be harnessed to the goal of globally sustainable development.

Since the debate on the first report commissioned by the Club of

Rome, Limits to Growth, in the 1970s and the Earth Summit in
Rio in 1992, the deterioration of the earth’s environment has been
of growing concern. In the 1990s, the challenges of poverty and
governance have risen to the top of the political agenda. The
integration of these concerns in international debates on world
trade and finance now constitutes the agenda for sustainable
development. It has been developed through the adoption of the
Millennium Development Goals in 2000, through the launching of the
Doha Development Agenda in 2001, and at the World Summit on
Sustainable development in 2002.

The World Summit on the Information Society must be the next

step. The transition to a networked knowledge society, based on
wide use of information and communication technologies, cannot be
a separate process driven by our fascination with technology for its
own sake or for short-term competitive advantage.

Prince El Hassan bin Talal

President of the Club of Rome

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Millennium Declaration of the UN General Assembly has
highlighted the major challenges facing mankind. They have to
be tackled in the next decades for the benefit of all. At the World
Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the world
community has set the objectives and action plans to reach a
sustainable world. The present World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) must be the next step.

The networked knowledge society is nothing less than a

paradigm-shift form the industrial model of the two past
centuries. It can introduce new patterns of social structure and
behavior, of public and private organization, of production and
trade. It can re-define the links and relationships between
people, nations and religions. Low-cost access to networks
–fiber, cable, wireless and satellite- can empower creativity,
innovation and local entrepreneurship, as well as strengthen
local communities, and improve resource-productivity: getting
more value from less.

The reduction of the ‘digital divide’ is therefore rightly a world

priority. This requires appropriate technology development,
and education in use of technologies, as well as effective use
of technologies for education and capacity building. These
technologies and programs must fit a wide range of skills, native
languages, local traditions and indigenous knowledge. When
they do, the transition to a networked knowledge society can be
a real step towards the alleviation of poverty and therefore a
substantial contribution towards a sustainable world society.

The full benefit from use of ICT for development cannot be

realized without addressing the need to preserve and enhance
cultural diversity. The potential richness of the emerging
knowledge society depends on safeguarding humanity’s cultural
heritage and diversity in creativity.

ICT can also play a crucial role in protecting and managing

our environment. It can help monitor natural resources;
natural disasters; climate change, fresh water depletion, desert

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extension and forest depletion, and many others. A systemic
approach for monitoring and early warning must be supported
by the international community and urgently implemented.

Effective and collaborative world governance is the next major

challenge for mankind: in health, environment, safeguarding
bio- and cultural diversity and sustainable development. The
emerging knowledge society adds new challenges: ensuring
rights of access to and creation of knowledge; re-defining and
protecting the ‘commons’, especially related to knowledge and
intellectual property rights; assuring privacy; addressing the
coherency and simultaneity of the infrastructure developments
and the educational processes, and finally caring for stability and
security in the transition towards a sustainable world society.

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 RECOMMENDED ACTIONS
Redefine the common goods of mankind in regard of the
emerging knowledge society in which a large part of knowledge
can be regarded as public goods.

Enhance the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which

the right to access and creation of information must be explicitly
addressed and protect the private sphere of all participants in
Cyberspace.

Reduce the ‘digital divide’ and empower women through

education.

Encourage the use of “open-source” software especially in

developing countries, to facilitate the reduction of the ‘digital
divide’.

Connect all the World’s universities and high-schools in the

same sort of high-speed network for research, education
and collaborative development as is available in Europe and
the US.

Develop a global structure and management facility for global

monitoring for the environment to enable the acquisition
of structured data and the improvement of environmental
management and development;

Elaborate new analytical tools for risk analysis and mechanisms

to dampen financial and political instabilities. Stability and
security are conditions for sustainable development.

Bridging of the ‘Digital Divide’ requires a simultaneous

development of infrastructure of ICT networks and – when
necessary - of local electrical power, and the training of future
teachers.

Involve and broaden the involvement of Civil Society with its

many NGOs and other organisations, in the implementation
processes of Plans of Action agreed upon in World Summits
and International Conferences.

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 1
A NEW WORLD FRAME FOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The agenda for Sustainable Development has been developed
through a series of major UN conferences in the 90s, starting
with the Conference on Environment and Development in Rio
in 1992. In the last three years, progress has accelerated in five
important meetings:

The United Nations Millennium Declaration was adopted

in September 2000. In it, Heads of State and Governments
repeated their commitment to the fundamental values of
freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and
shared responsibility. It was accompanied by the Millennium
Development Goals: including halving extreme poverty and
hunger; to achieve universal primary education; empower
women and promote equality between women and men; ensure
environmental sustainability; and create a global partnership for
development -with targets for aid, trade and debt relief.

The Brussels Declaration in May 2001 reaffirmed the critical

role played by the official development assistance for the Least
Developed Countries (LDCs), and the speedy implementation of
the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative. It emphasized that
improving the welfare of people is indispensable to sustainable
development.

The Doha Ministerial Declaration in November 2001 at the

WTO Ministerial Conference recognized the need for a new
multi-lateral trade framework for further economic development
and alleviation of poverty. It recognized that LDCs are vulnerable
and must be helped to secure beneficial and meaningful
integration into the global economy. It recognized that enhanced
market access, balanced rules, and well targeted, sustainable
financed technical assistance and capacity-building programs
are needed.

The fourth, the Monterrey Consensus, adopted in March

2002 recognized that in an increasingly interdependent world
economy, a holistic approach to financing sustainable, gender-

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sensitive, people-centered development -in all parts of the world-
is essential. It defined Leading Actions, including stimulation of
foreign direct investment, increasing international trade, financial
and technical cooperation, relieving external debt, stimulating
good governance and fighting corruption.

The fifth, the Johannesburg Summit Declaration and

Implementation Plan of September 2002 recognized that
poverty eradication, changing unsustainable consumption and
production patterns, and protecting and managing the natural
resource base are essential requirements for economic and social
development. It recognized that the increasing gap between the
rich and the poor, as well as between developed and developing
countries, pose major threats to global security and stability, and
that continued degradation of the global environment is a major
hindrance to sustainable prosperity.

All these conferences have created a real new framework for

action and reflection on world developments. Their Declarations
provide specific goals and timeframes. The present World
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) must be the sixth
step in this process. The emergence of new information and
communication technologies are creating a new paradigm: “the
networked knowledge society”.

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 2
ICT AND INNOVATION FOR SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Creating the Conditions for Sustainable

Development through use of ICT
Sustainable development depends on the involvement of
everyone and their willingness to take responsibility for our
collective future. Everyone will need relevant information in
forms that they can understand and use, as well as skills
and motivation which will facilitate change. Therefore raising
awareness through access to knowledge is most important.
Reducing the “Digital Divide” is therefore rightly a world-wide
priority. Without determined action, uneven growth of the
networked knowledge economy will increase inequity, its visibility
and its social consequences. Frustrated young people see the
huge difference between the lifestyles in the US and Europe and
their own, with migration to these wealthy regions as their only
alternative to continued poverty.

While attention naturally focuses on the most disadvantaged – the

one billion poorest in rural and most remote areas, a high priority
must be to establish market frameworks in which access can be
broadened to the “next 2 billion”. These are predominantly young
people (12-30) living in rapidly growing urban environments.
This is the population most likely to gain immediate benefit;
which has the curiosity and enthusiasm to drive the social
and entrepreneurial innovations; with the greatest need for
knowledge and with sufficient aggregate financial resources to
provide an adequate return on investment.

Technologies are not a solution to development problems on

their own. They can be valuable contributions to development in
combination with a full range of other measures.

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 2.2 Network and Power Infrastructure
The liberalization of information and communication network
infrastructure and service provision - particularly at the local level
(for W-LAN and inter-connection to mobile telephone networks)-
has to be implemented. PC-based access to the internet
is not necessarily the best “technology package”, for many
development purposes: much more may be possible with voice
communications (mobile telephone or VoIP/W-LAN systems); or
with digital radio and TV at the local community level.

The generalization of wireless and satellite communication

provides access of local and remote communities to information
and empowers the preservation and sharing of indigenous
knowledge.

Numerous experiments and initiatives in rural and remote places

as well as in urban areas are underway today in Africa, Asia,
the Middle East and elsewhere. They have in common the
determination of people to share of new facilities, and to achieve
a better life for the present and coming generations. Several
examples show the possibility to improve local health care and
medical services, to increase local agriculture production and
trade, to empower women, to organize education at all levels, to
build local indigenous knowledge centres and to start to provide
e-government services.

Taking advantage of the wireless communication facilities

necessitates the provision of decentralized electricity facilities.
Today, a variety of technologies are applicable to these
conditions. However, in the long run, sustainable renewable
energy sources such as biomass, solar cells, etc. must make an
increased contribution.

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2.3 Education for Knowledge Sharing and
Capacity Building
The ‘digital divide’ is but one element of a broad gap that
separates the rich from the poor. Development of appropriate
ICT has the potential to narrow that the gap. However, the
broadening of participation in and responsible engagements with
the information society must also focus much more on education
and entrepreneurship. The efforts must also go far beyond simple
provision of access to infrastructure and affordable terminals and
services. Education and innovation are linked to the creation and
dissemination of knowledge, and as a global public good, through
its sharing and integration into the chain of value creation.

Basic education for most people is not sufficient to achieve a

sustainable knowledge society, worldwide. It will be necessary to
move beyond the Millennium Development Goals in a huge effort
to develop educational systems on all levels.

Education for ICT

People need skills and knowledge in order to handle the

information flows they will be confronted with. Education for ICT
is necessary to promote the use of local knowledge with new
technologies. To allow the emergence of “multiple modernities”,
indigenous knowledge has to be fully integrated into the new
social reality. Cultural and linguistic diversity is to be fostered
as an element of global cohesion. In the process of deepening
democracy and participation, people also need to be able to
contribute to the knowledge circulating in society. Ownership of
content by society is of enormous importance when technologies
and infrastructure are produced by distant global companies.

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 ICT for Education

As education is necessary in order to develop knowledge

societies, ICT has to be used to develop education systems. It
empowers society to develop new learning methods, to promote
distance learning, to create virtual libraries and universities and to
assist with innovation and training. ICT can be particularly helpful
in research and development where fast communication and
knowledge access facilitate the creation of research communities.
In the domain of social innovations in education and health-care,
ICT allows greater peer-support between pupils and teachers, at
the local and community-level. Much more emphasis is needed
on this peer-to-peer support: teachers helping teachers; pupils
helping pupils. This may help to avoid a new cultural colonialism
through imposition of multi-media educational curricula and
content from US and European companies and commercially-
oriented institutions. We must connect all the World’s universities
and high-schools in the same sort of high-speed network for
research, education and collaborative development as is available
in Europe and the US.

ICT for Capacity Building

Equity and social cohesion are prerequisites for attaining a

sustainable communities and societies. Capacity building is
people-centred development deeply embedded in this social,
economic and political environment. Capacity building has to
be designed to promote change, to reduce vulnerabilities and to
motivate local populations and implies a long-term investment in
people. Training for professional skills, by and for local people,
at all levels of assimilation, provides the necessary long-term
perspective for local entrepreneur-ship and craftsmanship as well
as for social integration. Its implementation has to be a joint effort
by technical schools and universities as well as through business-
support networks.

Public authorities have the responsibility to take the lead to

encourage and invest and in all forms of education, having to their
side that basic education is a fundamental right. Basic education,
respecting local languages, integrating indigenous knowledge
and embedded in local traditions fulfill the prerequisites for the

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alleviation of poverty and the reduction of the ‘digital divide’ of their
citizens and is the ultimate condition for the empowerment of gender
equality, democracy and human dignity. ICT offers new possibilities to
accelerate the learning processes for basic education as well as for
enhanced skills training in many domains.

At world level a new ethics of human solidarity should accompany

these processes towards to a sustainable society.

2.4 Monitoring Environmental Targets

Information systems have an essential role to play in reaching
environmental targets for sustainable development. In the WSSD
in Johannesburg, the Plan of Implementation lists numerous actions
on environmental preservation and climate change which cannot be
realized without the support of ICT. These technologies can enable
systematic and comprehensive monitoring for the protection and
conservation of Earth’s ecosystem: the protection of forests from
uncontrolled exploitation, the protection of oceans and coastal areas
from large scale pollution, and of the marine environment from land-
based activities. We also need such a monitoring system to mitigate
the effects of desertification, drought and floods, to measure climate
change; to monitor land and natural resource use, and to manage
rescue efforts after large-scale disasters. The accumulation of very
large amounts of data; their effective use and archiving for the far
future, requires a global structure and management facilities.

The recent Conference on the Digital Earth in Brno has taken the
first steps; the implementation of the joint initiative of the European
Commission and the European Space Agency, the Global Monitoring
for Environment and Security system (GMES) as well as the
joint initiative of UN Environmental Program and International
Telecommunication Union, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GESI)
are other key steps enhancing the acquisition of structured data and
the improvement of environmental management, development and
sharing of best practices. The availability and use of data about the
Earth’s co-evolution with humanity will allow the modeling of future
scenarios, and provide national and world leaders with the necessary
tools for decisions.

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 2.5 Cultural Diversity and Creativity. The
Impact of the Media
Richness of Cultural Diversity

The implementation of sustainable communities implies a shift

of values, attitudes and approaches. To prevent a catastrophic
“clash of civilisations” in a multi-cultural world, both cultural
identity and diversity must be accepted as legitimate goals in
themselves, alongside respect for fundamental human rights and
identification with a common set of universal human values. Loss
of cultural diversity increases political and economic instability.

We must develop culturally diverse, tolerant and vibrant societies

in which individuals have the opportunity actively to pursue and
fulfil their primary need for a sense of identity and a sense of
belonging. We need a world of “multiple modernities”, with
communities rather than ideologies, in which different cultures
peacefully co-exist: a world of “learning communities” in
which no culture imposes its values on others, and where
“indigenising modernity” and “learning from each other”
are values in themselves. The networked knowledge society
has to integrate the richness of indigenous knowledge as well
as to assimilate eco-centric and anthropo-centric visions of a
sustainable world society.

To reflect this need, more attention needs to be given to voice-

communications -with a new spectrum of possibilities from
cheaper mobile telephony and to voice over the Internet; and
to development of interactive digital TV, as a platform for
peer-to-peer and “community” communication, as well as
broadcasting: both could do much to respect and protect cultural
diversity.

The Role of the Mass-Media

The local and regional authorities have to be aware of the role

the mass-media can play in the construction of more sustainable
societies. These media must be re-oriented from systematic
promotion of unsustainable consumerism towards the creation of

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awareness about sustainability and environmental issues, about social
cohesion and local values and traditions. They must be harnessed
to enhance literacy, basic education and technical skills. In fact, the
mass-media should become major players in empowering people
and communities by making them more conscious about their own
cultural identity, instead of being simply a marketing instrument for
stereotyped consumer patterns. This requires a radical change in
licensing regimes.

2.6 Empowering Productivity and

Entrepreneurship
Local Level

The availability of appropriate technical infrastructures for education

and skill training provide the sound basis for better social integration
as well as to facilitate local entrepreneurship, particularly by women
and youngsters. The re-valuing of local indigenous knowledge
and traditions, enhanced through partnerships for the transfer of
technology innovation, opens new ways for genuine and sustainable
market development. The recognition of property rights, land-
ownwership, IPR, business ownership, etc. is a necessary step
in reaching sustainable societies, as is recognition of the value of
people’s knowledge and “social capital” in the attribution of micro-
credits and micro-loans.

Major efforts are also necessary to get frameworks right for the
accountability of local authorities, employees, investors and
shareholders, and for more effective empowering of socially-
responsible local development.

Global Level

There must be major efforts, at the global level, to get the market
and accountability frameworks right. We must create frameworks,
at the global level, which support “green entrepreneur-ship”.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) must become a ubiquitous
requirement. The « triple-bottom line » reporting, including on
natural, social and human capital development, completed with a
reporting on partnerships for investment and development, should be
normal practice for all publicly-quoted companies.

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3
GOVERNANCE AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In the next 30 to 50 years the emergence of mature information and
knowledge world society poses new challenges to its governance
at all levels of society: local, regional and world. The new space
created by the wired and wireless net of communication, the world
wide web of information, the knowledge shell around the earth will
be an integral of part of human society. All this needs appropriate
governance institutions with specific legislative frameworks as
well as monitoring and control mechanisms.

The knowledge society is nothing less than the prolongation of the

physical society we have known since the appearance of mankind
on earth. This society is by definition the most human in the history
of the earth. It is also a totally new situation for mankind. The first
challenge is to get all communities connected: The “knowledge
shell” is the knowledge of all humanity. The second challenge is
to enable everyone to be able to use, and add to, this common
resource.

In the frame of the present World Summit on the Information

Society the following recommendations are suggested:

3.1 Protecting the “Commons”. Enhancing

The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights
World society has to redefine and agree upon the common
goods of mankind. These are not only nature and the ecological
system of which our species is part of. In the emerging networked
knowledge society, a large part of our knowledge can be regarded
as public goods to which any citizen of this world can freely use
and add to. Since these rights are not enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, an enhanced text has to address
explicitly these new common goods.

To facilitate the emergence of new entrepreneurial networks and

peer-to-peer educational support, new initiatives must also be
taken at international level to recognise, protect and encourage
collective knowledge creation: “free and open source” software;

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knowledge in the “public domain”; “traditional knowledge” and “open
content” such as artistic (including music) and scientific knowledge
that the creators wish to contribute to an open pool, but nevertheless
wish to see recognised as theirs.

3.2 Stability and Security

The stronger (and faster) interactions between people in a more
intensely networked society and economy will generate new risks
of instability, as well as new growth and creativity. These risks of
instability from positive feedback and “fashionable” over-enthusiasms
or recessions, whether in financial markets, in internet “virus”
propagation, or in social movements, must be addressed. They
must be addressed at the international level. New mechanisms must
be found to dampen “run-away” trends, to contain them, and to
re-channel them. The analytical tools for risk analysis in complex
systems are becoming available, but the institutional arrangements to
mitigate risks are not yet in place.

3.3 Simultaneity in the Implementation of

Infrastructures
The successful bridging of the ‘digital divide’ requires a simultaneous
development of infrastructure of ICT networks, eventually accompanied
by the installation of local electrical power, and the training of future
teachers. Governments insist too frequently on their efforts to install
infrastructure and overlook the problem of the training of the teachers
and conditions for acceptance. It is important to stress that ICT is only
a tool and not an end in itself. New contents and teaching instruments
using ICT, have to be developed and it is to be expected that such
initiatives would be developed by appropriate international institutions.
In the absence of a simultaneous implementation of the human,
technical as well as the financial investments by governments, the
risk is real that they miss the objectives and expectations ICT can
offers for further development, especially in the reduction of the ‘digital
divide’.

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 3.4 Protecting Privacy
The new communication and information infrastructures bear the
potential threat to the private sphere of all participants. This threat
is already present in today’s networks. The normal functioning of any
society and democracy in particular requires tools and rules to prevent
the abuse of information about private matters of its members. In view
of the importance of this matter, it has to be addressed urgently by
the political and civil society including the business leadership at
world level.

3.5 Participation of the Civil Society and NGOs

in Plans of Implementation
The implementation of the Plan of Action of this and past World
Summits as well as other large conferences of the last thirty years will
be difficult. Political commitments are agreed on the spot. However,
their implementation risks to fall short, by far, of the expectations
of the concerned populations. The difficulty lies in the fact that
political decisions are essentially top-down measures. However, their
successful implementation is a bottom-up process, driven by local
communities and authorities. The greater involvement of Civil Society
with its many NGOs and other organisations, which have considerable
expertise in specific fields, is increasingly essential in implementation
processes. NGOs and civil-society organisations should be
empowered to play an increased role.

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The Club of Rome • Secretary General • Rissener Landstr. 193 - 197 • D - 22559 Hamburg • Germany

www.clubofrome.org